31/12/2025
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In just a few hours, it will happen again. The last day of the year has arrived, and 2025 is coming to an end.
By now, people have stockpiled tons of fireworks, and hospitals are on high alert, ready to receive countless injured patients.
Soon, the air in the streets will turn blue with smoke and an acrid haze that irritates the respiratory tract. Yet every year, our chronically underfunded hospitals are flooded with casualties and law enforcement officers, already stretched thin by overtime, have to prepare for what feels like a state of war.
Have we learned nothing from past years? Or do we simply refuse to learn from previous New Year’s Eves?
A quick PubMed search returns hundreds of articles on fireworks-related injuries. Among the most extreme cases is one from Slovenia, where a child ignited a firework at home, causing fatal cranial trauma to the mother (Ferenčić et al., 2024).
We cannot ignore another case from last New Year’s Eve, in which a seven-year-old child, after an illegal explosive device detonated near them, barely survives, has required 40 surgical procedures to date — essentially one surgery per week (Tagesspiegel, 2025).
What is it all for? Is a brief surge of adrenaline and testosterone really worth injuring yourself, harming loved ones or bystanders, causing lifelong disability, or even death?
Are we truly incapable of finding safer ways to spend our free time, that we need violence and injury to experience a fleeting sense of pleasure? Is such toxic masculinity really necessary?
According to Jacobson et al. (2021), 91% of the injured were male, with a median age of 24 (range 1–61). Young people whose lives are still ahead of them…
Ferenčić (2024) Fatality from Firework-Induced Trauma: A Case Report. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine. Vol 107
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/eine-kugelbombe-kostete-ihren-kleinen-bruder-fast-das-leben-wir-haben-irgendwann-aufgehort-die-operationen-zu-zahlen-15085218.html
Jacobson (2020) Severe Fireworks-Related Injuries
Demographic Characteristics, Injury Patterns, and Firework Types in 294 Consecutive Patients. Pediatric Emergency Care 37(1) pp e32-e36
